


Entered Into With Abandon

by Tabithian



Series: Spice Rack Adventures [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Crack, M/M, Original Fiction, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Cinnamon didn’t stop by the Spice Rack as often as he used to in the old days, before he was recruited by his current team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entered Into With Abandon

Captain Cinnamon didn’t stop by the Spice Rack as often as he used to in the old days, before he was recruited by his current team.

“Cap!”

Tarragon sighed, watching as Chervil caught Cinnamon in a hug, brimming with youthful exuberance. “Long time, no see.” And then, true to form, Chervil glanced about furtively before leaning in to whisper – for Chervil - “What’s it like working with Chocolate Crusader? Is it true he has a thing with Peppermint Punisher?”

“Chervil!” Tarragon barked. Trying to keep him in line was a full-time job in itself. He gave Cinnamon a rueful look. “He’s actually better at boundaries now, if you believe that.”

Cinnamon’s Cinnamon, though, and laughs it off. “How about I bring them with me sometime so you can ask them in person? I’m sure they’d be delighted.”

And since it’s Cinnamon, it comes across as a heartfelt offer. Everyone knows better than to make Crusader or Punisher angry, and there’s nothing more guaranteed to do that (outside of committing crime or plotting to take over the world – they were incredibly touchy about that) better than poking into their love lives.

“Uh,” Chervil laughs, nervously, trying to worm out of the comradely hold Cinnamon has him in. (No one really gave him enough credit for his deviousness.)

“That’s. Really, Cap, that’s. No need for that, I know they’re busy people. Fighting crime, breaking faces. Seriously, thanks for the offer, though.”

“Are you sure, Chervil? I’m sure they’d love to come down and meet all of you.”

The last is directed to Tarragon and the others, scattered around the Rack relaxing after a string of stressful missions. (Outer space is never as exciting as the movies make it out to be. Breathtaking, yes, of course it is. It loses its appeal after the Mezzaluna  
loses power above a star about to go supernova or just off the event horizon of a black hole one time too many.)

“You know any friend of yours is always welcome, Cap,” Brawler says, resting a beefy hand on Cinnamon’s shoulder.

Cinnamon, ducks his head and slides a look at Tarragon. (Stupid bastard, he never seems to realize how much people like him, how easy it is to like him.) “That go for you too, Tarragon?”

“Brawler speaks for all of us on that one, Cap,” he says, smiling at the look that gets him.

“Tarragon - “

“Oh, hey!” Chervil tugs Cinnamon towards one of the corner booths where Lavender and Rosemary have been playing a cutthroat game of poker for the last hour. “You haven’t met Lavender, yet!”

Brawler shoots him a grin as Cinnamon lets Chervil drag him away. “Kid really missed him, huh?”

Cinnamon’s new team is a better fit for him than they ever were, and they all know that, even Chervil who had taken it the hardest when he left. Cinnamon will always have a place with them, that’s never been in question. He’s helped them out with a battle or two since he left, but.

“Can’t really blame him,” Tarragon says, shrugging. He misses his friend. “It’s Cinnamon.”

Brawler rolls his eyes, and yes, he knows, but. “You can talk to me about it when you tell Rosemary, “ he says, eyes narrowing. Not fair, maybe, but.

“Low blow, T,” Brawler says, but he’s smiling, so no hard feelings. There rarely are with Brawler.

“Go on, I know you want to hear whatever story Chervil’s going to get out of him. I have a few things to take care of here first.”

Brawler raises one thick eyebrow at him, but doesn’t call him on his transparent stalling tactic. Which is the for the best, really. He has to do a quick inventory check, make sure the Rack’s stocked up.

Cinnamon’s laughter catches his attention, has him looking over to see him in his element. Surrounded by the team, friends, smiling and laughing. He’s describing some heroic feat or other with graceful arcs and sweeps of his hands, Chervil leaning in on one side, Lavender on the other, both completely enthralled.

Cinnamon looks up, catches him looking and grins before going back to his story. Tarragon shakes his head, stupid, and freezes when the glasses rattle in the drying racks. Looks up to see the light fixtures shaking slightly.

“What the hell?” Chervil says, bewildered.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Rosemary says, a faithful disciple of popular culture as always.

“Oh, no,” Brawler says, staring out the front windows.

Slowly – Tarragon’s been in the hero business long enough to know nothing good can come out of this – he turns to see shadowy forms coming down the street. Taller than the buildings lining the street and most likely not organic in nature with the way the light’s hitting them as they draw nearer.

“Friends of yours?” Cinnamon murmurs, suddenly right next to him.

Tarragon slides a look at him. With the kind of training Cinnamon has, that kind of thing stopped being surprising a long time ago. “Hardly. Yours?”

Cinnamon smiles. “I like to think I’d remember if one of my friends has an army of giant robots.”

You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

“I can’t believe she did it,” Rosemary says, moving to stand next to them. She looks annoyed, which is understandable considering they were trying to enjoy the lull in supervillain plots and alien invasions, but this. It looks personal. (Yet another thing that never bodes well for anyone involved.)

“Something you’d care to share with the rest of us?” Cinnamon asks.

“It’s Aniseed Attacker,” Rosemary says, throwing a hand up in disgust. “Remember our last run-in with her? She had that whole - completely asinine, I might add - monologue about the finer points of robotics, how no one appreciated her genius, blah, blah, blah.” Rosemary shakes her head. “Looks like she actually did it.”

And then, a little alarmingly, if he has to to be honest, says, “They’re amazing.”

From a technological standpoint, of course they are. The robots are amazingly agile. As far as he can see only a couple of cars in the robots’ path have been crushed, and the ones that were looked like they might have been double-parked.

It makes sense that Rosemary would be affronted by Aniseed’s villainous monologue on the topic of robotics. It’s one of Rosemary’s scientific loves, next to aerospace engineering, and she takes it very seriously. Maybe a little too seriously at times.

Tarragon looks at Cinnamon, and can’t help the smile. His team. “You feel like lending a hand for old time’s sake?”

Cinnamon grins. “Like you need to ask.”

That’s the thing of it isn’t it, though. He never has. “Time to save the world again, everyone!”

Maybe not the world this time, but he’s gotten pretty damn fond of their little part of it, and that’s more than enough for him.


End file.
